


The Games

by rinthegreat



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Battle Royale AU, HaruRin is more implied than anything, M/M, Rated For Violence, Survival Horror, a lot of characters are gonna die just be warned, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2439812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinthegreat/pseuds/rinthegreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“These Games takes us back to the entertainment of the gladiator arena.  The risk is high, but the reward is great: the winning team gets to go home.”</p>
<p>Or the Battle Royale AU where Iwatobi and Samezuka are kidnapped and pitted against each other in a series of death games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Games

**Author's Note:**

> Horror AU which I sincerely hope to have completed by Halloween. We'll see.

            Rin groans as he rolls over.  His head is killing him, and he can’t quite remember how he got into his bed the night before.  He doesn’t remember anything past swim practice actually, and his mattress feels like stones beneath his back.  “Sousuke.”  It takes more effort than it should to get that name past his lips.  Rin’s throat feels dry, and he swallows.  Barely.  He doesn’t want to open his eyes.  He doesn’t remember drinking the night before, but he’s had a hangover once before in his life, back in Australia, and he knows once he sits up, it’s all over.

            “Sousuke,” he croaks again, irritated that his roommate didn’t answer immediately.  He hears groaning come from somewhere to his left and finally peeks an eye open.  Well that’s strange.  He doesn’t remember lying on the floor.  He doesn’t even remember going anywhere there _was_ a concrete floor.

            Rin sits bolt upright, his eyes flying open.  Instantly he crumples in on himself, head between knees and clutching the back of his head against the pain.  There are little stars floating on the edge of his vision, even with his eyes screwed shut, and the headache is going to make him puke.  This is a thousand times worse than a hangover.

            “Rin?”  He hears Sousuke’s voice come from his right, sounding just as weak as his own.

            Bravely, Rin peeks his eyes open and turns to look at Sousuke.  His vision is somewhat blurred, but it’s clear enough for him to make out the smear of dried blood across the other’s temple.  He takes one hand away from the back of his head and looks at it.  Red.

            “You’re bleeding.”  Sousuke’s by his side in an instant, his hands now pressed to the back of Rin’s head.  They’re cool and gentle and relieve some of the pressure.  “Are you ok?”

            “You’re bleeding too,” Rin manages.  He closes his eyes.  “Where are we?”

            The hands disappear, and there’s a ripping of fabric before Rin’s head is wrapped in what smells like part of Sousuke’s shirt.  “I don’t know.  I don’t remember anything from after dinner.  There.”  Sousuke sits back.  “Better?”

            It isn’t really, but Rin tilts his head in thanks.  “That’s better than me.  The last thing I remember is calling the end of practice.”

            “Rin-senpai?”  There’s more rustling, and Rin finally looks around properly.  Momo is sitting up, looking at them with a cut on his cheek.  Ai is lying on the ground, out cold from the looks of it.  Uozumi and Nakagawa are checking each other’s head wounds while Minami looks around, blinking in confusion.  Iwashimizu is lying unnaturally still on the ground at a strange angle.  He turns back to Momo, who had been addressing him in the first place.  “Where are we?”

            Before he can answer, there’s a squeak of metal on metal, and they all, except Ai and Iwashimizu, turn to see the cause of the commotion.  A cell door, much like the ones he’s seen in movies, opens.  So they’ve been in a jail the whole time.  Rin struggles to stand, eventually being helped up by Sousuke.  The other keeps a tight hold on Rin’s elbow, even when he’s upright and thinks he can manage without the help.

            There’s no one on the other side of the door, so they all stand there and wait a little longer.  Momo’s the first to approach the door.  “Momo,” Rin hisses.  “What are you doing?”

            “Seeing where we are.”  The younger Mikoshiba brother doesn’t look so good.  He’s pale and not walking a straight line.

            “Don’t be an idiot.”  Rin’s head is killing him, but he shakes himself from Sousuke’s grip and tries to walk over to Momo anyway.  His heart thuds against his skull, and Rin stumbles against the feeling.  Sousuke is there in a moment, his arms wrap around Rin and pull him in to his chest, catching him before he falls.

            “Momo,” the taller says calmly.  “Listen to Rin.”

            The ginger frowns, and Rin can tell that there’s more damage than just the scratch on his cheek.  “We don’t know what’s out there,” Rin explained.  “Stay here –“

            “That’s the point, Rin-senpai!”  Momo yells at him suddenly.  “Look around.  There are _no windows_ here.”  Rin does look.  They all do.  Even Ai is sitting up and looking around himself, confused.  Momo’s right.  There are no windows.  Just stone walls on three sides of the room and bars on the fourth where the door is.  It really is a cell.  “If that door closes again, there’s no way out,” Momo concludes.

            Maybe Rin was wrong.  Maybe Momo’s head wound is the least severe of them all.  “Fine.  Momo, help Ai.  Let’s go.”  This time, Sousuke helps Rin walk to the door, rather than keeping him away from it.  They go through first, knowing the others will follow them.

            The door opens into a single hallway, no other doors cell or otherwise leading away from it.  It’s dim in that one hallway, a blessing in disguise.  Sousuke is grunting under his breath with every step he takes, and they’re moving slow as it is.  The hall is short, ending at two double doors with push handles; like a school.  It takes both him and Sousuke to push them open, and when they do they’re blinded.

            Rin blinks, his vision coming back to him as the door behind them slams shut.  It’s white all around them.  The walls, the cement floor, even the high ceilings that imply they’re in some kind of warehouse are as white as a hospital.  The only things not white are the people walking toward them from across the room.  They look incredibly familiar, even from this distance.  In fact, one of them strongly resembles…

            “Haru!”  Rin rips himself from Sousuke’s grip and runs over to him, closing the distance between them.  Haru steps closer to him, and Rin catches himself on the other’s arm when his head starts to pound from the movements.  “Haru, are you ok?”

            “I think I should be asking you that.”  There’s actual concern in Haru’s voice, and Rin feels something touch his bandage.  He looks up.  Haru has his hand on Rin’s forehead where Sousuke had wrapped the fabric.  There’s some dried blood in his ear.  Rin would bet anything that there had been more, but Makoto had wiped it off before they walked out.

            “Har –“

            “Welcome,” a loud voice booms through the room.  Rin sees Haru’s eyes close as if in pain, even as his own head pounds.  “You are all, no doubt, wondering why you are here.”  Rin doesn’t care.  He just wants the sounds to stop so he can lie down and sleep.  “If you would all just take your pain killers and drink your water, then I’d be happy to tell you.”

            “What pills?”  Nagisa is cross eyed.  He has a bandage wrapped around his head like Rin, and Rei was missing even more of his shirt than Sousuke. 

            Rin takes in the other Iwatobi students: Makoto looks dizzy and out of it, his hair matted to the side of his head; Rei is supporting Nagisa but doesn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings; Haru still has his eyes closed against the pain; a boy he doesn’t recognize and a girl he knows as Gou’s closest friend are looking around, confused; and then he sees Gou.  She’s clutching at Makoto’s sleeve, and had been hidden behind him on first look.  “Gou…”  He starts to walk towards her, but a voice stops him.

            “Rin.”  He turns to see Sousuke and the rest of his team crowded around a white table.  When did that get there?  He looks back and sees the Iwatobi group walking towards their own white table.

            “Rin.”  This time it’s Haru talking.  His hand disappears from where it was resting on Rin’s head.  “I think you should go back to your team now.”  The freestyler gives him one last look of concern before extracting himself from Rin’s grip and following Makoto and the others to his table.

            He joins the Samezuka swimmers at their own table, standing next to Sousuke.  The other’s arm immediately goes around Rin’s back for support, and he looks down at the table.  There’s a cup of water in front of all of them, even one sitting there waiting for Iwashimizu, and two small white pills sitting on a white napkin.  Nothing about this seems like a good idea.

            “Momo, what are you doing?”  Ai sounds scandalized.

            They turn to him.  Momo’s drinking from the cup, the two pills which were in front of him are now gone.  He drains the glass and sets it down.  “What?”

            “You’re not that stupid, tell me you’re not that stupid,” Rin begs.

            “I have a headache.  That mechanical voice hurt.  I thought I’d try it.”  He says it as if it’s the most reasonable thing in the world.

            “How hard were you dropped on your head as a kid?”  This time it’s Uozumi.

            “It’s working.”

            “What?”  Rin asks.  They all lean over and stare at him.  He does look better.  His eyes are clear and focused as they look around at all of them, and the color has returned to his cheeks.

            Rin grabs his own pills and raises them to his lips but is stopped by Sousuke’s hand disappearing from around his waist to cover his own.  “What are you doing?”  He turns to Sousuke, trying to focus on his features.  “My head is killing me, and I seriously can’t keep my eyes open any longer.”

            Sousuke shakes his head and takes his own pills before Rin can stop him, draining his cup in one gulp.  “Sousuke,” Rin hisses.  “Those could be dangerous.”  He realizes he’s being hypocritical.  But it’s one thing when Momo takes the pills without his knowledge, or if Rin wants to risk it himself.  It’s another thing if it’s Sousuke.  After a few moments the hand on top of his gives a squeeze before disappearing entirely.  Rin pops the pills and drinks the water before Sousuke can change his mind.

            By the time he’s done with his glass, the pain has faded and his vision has returned to its full sharpness.  The rest of his teammates have taken theirs, and they’re all looking around at each other as if a miracle just occurred.

            “Now,” the voice returns.  It is mechanical, just like Momo said.  It sounds like someone put it through one of those voice scramblers.  And where is it coming from?  Rin looks around, trying to spot speakers or a person or something, but the ceilings are too high and the room is too large.  “As I was saying: welcome.  You are all, no doubt, wondering why you are here.  Allow me to make it simple for you: there is no reason.  You are rival swim teams who needed to step up your game.  Of course, given the massive difference in your teams’ sizes, I had to compromise a bit.  Think of this as _improving your teamwork_.”

            With a loud click, all the lights in the room shut off.  The arm reappears around Rin’s waist, pulling him into Sousuke’s side this time.  He doesn’t resist.  A whirring sound fills the room, and then there’s a grey light projected on the wall in front of them like an old movie.  It beeps as the numbers flash down, three…two…one.

            An animation pops up on the screen.  Poorly drawn stick figures.  They stand there as that same mechanical voice, tuned to a lower pitch, narrates.  “Since the dawn of time, mankind has fought against each other for the entertainment of others.”  The stick figures fought each other with stick swords, each frame jumping shakily to the next with no in between.  “Medieval jousting has made way to modern day Olympics, including sports like swimming.”  Some water that looked like an ocean drawn by a five year old with lines through it separating fake lanes broke over the heads of the stick people swimming.  Though the art is done so poorly, they look like they’re drowning instead.

            “But the audience has grown bored with this.  What fun is swimming to watch without the risk of a swimmer getting killed by a shark?”  What seems to be a fish with teeth came from under the water and eats one of the stick swimmers.  Ink splotches that Rin belatedly realizes are supposed to be blood flies shakily across the wall.

            A circle containing stick people holding stick swords shows up on the screen instants before the voice speaks once more.  “These Games takes us back to the entertainment of the gladiator arena.  The risk is high, but the reward is great: the winning team gets to go home.”

            “What?!”  The outcry comes from across the room.  Rin recognizes it instantly as Nagisa.  The room is no longer silent. 

            Rin turns slightly to Sousuke and whispers to him.  “What’s going on, Sousuke?  What happened before we woke up?”  He feels the other shrug, but before he can respond the strange video pauses where it is, and the original voice booms through the loud speakers, silencing everyone immediately. 

            “It’s rude to talk during a movie.”  The voice is louder than before, and despite the autotune, it sounds angry.  The ‘movie’ is paused on the stick figures in the gladiator arena, shaking like it was made using an old VCR tape.

            “What’s going on?”  Momo yells angrily, above the whispers echoing around the room.  The video shuts off, leaving the room in complete darkness.

            A scuffling sound comes from the other side of the room, followed by a loud crack like a gunshot and everyone goes silent again.  Sousuke’s hand tightens on Rin’s waist, and Rin shrinks into his side further.  The lights come back on, blinding him, and when vision comes back to him there’s a body on the floor.

            A general uproar follows.  Momo looks like he’s about to make a sprint for it, and Ai’s right behind him.  Rin would join, but he thinks Sousuke’s in shock because he hasn’t moved.  Gou’s friend is screaming when another gunshot sounds out, and this time they can all see the dust fly off the concrete floor.  Everyone freezes, except Rin and Sousuke who hadn’t moved in the first place.

            “Nobody move unless you want to end up like Mr. Track Star.”

            “He’s not dead,” Sousuke whispers in Rin’s ear.  He’s not sure why Sousuke felt the need to reassure him until Rin realizes he’s shaking.

            The mechanical voice chuckles over the hidden loud speakers.  It sounds wrong somehow.  “Oh no, Sousuke.  He is most certainly dead.”

            Everyone turns to them, and Rin pushes away from Sousuke staring at him in horror.  “How did he hear that?”  He whispers back.

            “I hear everything, Rin.”  Rin looks up and around the room, trying to find the source of the sound or a microphone or some clue as to what was happening.  “And I can assure everyone here, that Sera is dead.”

            “This is a trick.”  Nagisa’s voice echoes through the room.  “This is a joke, and it’s not funny.”

            “Is it now?”  The doors from both sides of the room bang open and a large group of masked people march in.  Their clothes are all black; the masks black cloth with white smiley faces painted on with what looks like white out.  They march past both the Iwatobi group and the Samezuka group, and Rin feels himself pulled out of their way by his shirt.  The mass walks up to the wall where the video had been playing and turns around, facing them in two lines.  “Let’s test Nagisa’s theory, shall we?”

            As soon as the voice finishes speaking, two of the masked people walk out from the far end of the line.  The approach the Iwatobi group and snatch one of them before anyone can react.  Rin tries to jerk himself out of Sousuke’s grip, but the other doesn’t budge.  “Gou.  Thank you for volunteering.  Or, my apologies, you go by Kou now, correct?”

            Rin’s baby sister is standing there, now facing all of them and looking completely terrified.  There’s a small smear of blood in her hair that almost blends in but not quite.  “Kou here is going to serve as evidence that I am definitely _not joking_.”

            Everything happens at once.  A knife appears from nowhere, held by the masked man holding Gou.  Rin manages to escape Sousuke’s grip, only to run two steps before being recaptured.  There’s a flash of silver, and Rin’s vision goes dark, covered by Sousuke’s hand.  Then time speeds back up.  The shouting and screaming around him is deafening, but Rin himself is mute.

            “Take them back to their rooms.  They need their rest before The Games begin.”

            Sousuke nudges Rin to walk, keeping his eyes covered, and Rin obeys purely because he doesn’t know what else to do.  Something jabs him in the side, but it disappears an instant later along with Sousuke’s other hand.  The hand reappears, continuing to guide Rin.

            There’s a slamming of the doors behind him, but they keep walking.  Rin assumes they’re going down the hallway from before.  Sousuke stops him, and he hears the cell door close behind them too.

            Rin’s vision reappears, and he looks around seeing that in the time they were gone, beds had appeared.  Sousuke guides him to one off in the corner away from the others who are talking in low, frantic voices.  Rin lets Sousuke seat him on the bed but reaches out and grabs the other’s hand when he tries to walk away.  “Don’t go,” he says in a small whisper.

            Concern takes over Sousuke’s features, and he sits beside Rin.  He vaguely registers that it would be strange on almost any other occasion to ask Sousuke, his best friend, to stay in the same bed as him, but he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he’s in shock.  He lies down, resting his head in Sousuke’s lap.  He closes his eyes when the other strokes his fingers through his hair.  This is probably just a bad dream, and when he wakes up, they’ll be back in their own room, in their own beds.  He’ll call Gou and ask her to have dinner with him.  Maybe he’ll even invite Sousuke.


End file.
